Buying a house still scares us, but we realize renting is more expensive than buying in Dallas, and financially speaking it would be better to buy and start building equity. We think buying a house is an investment in our future. We are lucky to have two sets of parents that are pretty handy at fixing stuff. So, once we buy our fixer upper, I’m sure there would be lots of ER calls to them.

I’m going to have to balance out our saving goals moving forward in order to reach our $30,000. Let’s just say any money we get will be going to the down payment savings bucket. Here are some ways I’m restructuring our saving buckets:

Emergency fund will be $10,000 instead of $20,000. Money post $10K will start going to a down payment bucket. Once we buy a house, we can start building the EF fund to a $20,000 level.

Funding Retirement Accounts – Limits to the 401k and ROTH IRA accounts have increased for 2013. Next year’s max 401k contribution will be $17500, and ROTH IRA contributions will be $5500. 2013 Contributions may remain the same for us. Still evaluating. Our apartment lease ends in Jan 2014., s our goal is to save a huge down payment by then. We already save substantially compared to our peers, so my thought is once we have a house we can max out all our accounts and save even more.

Lower expenses – Ahh my ultimate goal every month. How can I lower our monthly expenses? I don’t always succeed but maybe in 2013 I will!

Travel- We still want to travel. Find ways to travel cheap! Use Airbnb, and travel to cities off season.

Sock away bonuses and tax refunds.

Are you currently saving for a house down payment? Do you find it painful or easy?

Good luck girl! We are trying to save more right now. We have around $30,000 and want to save another $10,000+ so that we can get to 10% of our purchase price for a down payment. It’s not that bad because we have a goal and home ownership is SUPER important to us.

We also want to be homeowners one day, but it’s not really feasible for us at this point until my husband lands a full time firefighter job. So we’re saving at this point, but it’s really more for a new car in the next year or two

Nice goal. I recently saved around $24K for a down payment as well. It didn’t take very long because I sold some assets to help build the capital. Is there a reason you chose $30k? I would try for $15K or $20K if possible so you can stop paying for someone else’s mortgage sooner :0)

Congratulations on setting your $30K house downpayment fund! We plan to start saving towards an eventual home purchase likely to happen sometime in 2014 as well. Based on the real estate in the Tri-state area we’d need a minimum of $30K.

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I am 22 year old "Gen Y" living in Dallas, Texas. I have my B.S. Global Business and M.S. Supply Chain, and I am currently working on my MBA. As I navigate the grown-up world, I am constantly trying to balance my life, career, and money.